Iconoclasm

In the context of Sam Durant's Iconoclasm project in Glasgow – a series of drawings presented across multiple public sites – the artist discussed his extended research, begun in 2008, into the destruction and defacement of public statues, memorials and monuments as acts of political protest.

Durant’s interest in monuments and memorials began with Proposal for Monument at Altamont Raceway (1999), continued notably with Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions (2005) that recontextualises memorials to victims of the conquest of North America, and more recently with Proposal for Public Fountain (2015), a marble work depicting an anarchist statue being blasted by a police water cannon. He has presented major public art projects, Labyrinth (2015) in Philadelphia, addressing mass incarceration and The Meeting House(2016) in Concord, MA that took up the subject of race in colonial and contemporary New England.

His latest public sculpture, Untitled (drone), (2021) – a monumental fiberglass sculpture in the shape of an abstracted drone – is the second commission for the High Line Plinth, New York City, and is now on view until 2022. It raises the issues of drone warfare and surveillance in American society.

Curated by The Common Guild